Batman: Arkham Asylum (Game of the Year) Review

Can one of 2009's best games get better?

One of the things you'll be collecting as you go off on the Riddler's challenge is patient interviews. These are five-part audio logs for each of the main villains in the game. Each one of these is a mini-story showing you how sick these people are as they converse with the Arkham staff -- Poison Ivy almost kills her doctor, Croc talks about eating people, and the Joker turns Harley to the darkside. Each of them is riveting and really gives you a well-rounded look at who the Scarecrow is and why the Riddler is so crazy. These are stored in the character bio section for each main villain. Even though most don't have audio logs, there are 42 bios to unlock.

As if all this story mode content wasn't enough to keep you wrapped up in your Robin PJs, Arkham Asylum also tosses in 16 challenge rooms for you to go nuts in. Again, these are broken up between 360-degree fighting and the Invisible Predator challenges, but there's more pressure thanks to the three medals for every event and the online leaderboards. For the straight fighting ones, you'll need to pull off certain scores to come away with one, two, or three medals. Getting the highest honor of three awards means that you're chaining together insane combos and decimating anyone who gets in your way. Eventually, you'll only have a certain amount of time to finish these fights. Meanwhile, in the Invisible Predator rounds, you'll get medals for pulling off certain feats such as zip-lining into an enemy and knocking him over a railing as well as blowing up three different walls while taking out three different enemies at the same time.

Personally, I wasn't sold when I first heard about these challenges -- I mean, they're in the same environments as the fights in the story, so it's kind of like you're just replaying certain levels again. However, once I started chasing scores on the leaderboards (which are displayed when you're browsing through the different challenges) and hunting the Trophy/Achievement for the 40-hit combo, I could see how great these sections were to just drop in and fight. Again, it's a blast to be Batman and take out crooks with flipping punches and well-timed Batarangs, so it's only more fun to do it as fast as possible and beat your buddy's score.

I've touched on how well-done and important characterization is in this game, but I do need to take a second and tell you how good the voice acting and sound is as well. There were plenty of times I'd find myself just sitting in an air duct listening to the Joker yammer over the loudspeaker. Mark Hamill is excellent in this game -- his inflection, his timing, and everything else is just spot-on. Thing is, he's not the exception to the rule -- Batman, Poison Ivy, the Riddler all sound excellent. Sure, some of the guards are hit or miss, but the characters you care about nail it. Add in the fact that you have an orchestral score that fits the dark, brooding mood of the game, and you have a title that is everything a Batman game's supposed to be in terms of mood.

How would you beat him?

In terms of visual fidelity, Batman: Arkham Asylum looks great. The island is that right creepy/cool mix, and the fact that Batman's face and suit takes damage as the story progresses drives home how bad this night has been. Still, there is some screen tearing during the opening movie, CGI stuff has a tendency to get some pixelization, and the in-game cutscenes have guards with bug-eyes and shoddy lip syncing. None of those are giant issues, but they're there and it can hurt the presentation to see Joker wiggling his head around while talking to Batman but clearly never be looking at Batman.

If you want to start a flame war, the graphics tend to be sharper on the Xbox 360 when compared to the PS3, which packs a 1.2 GB install that lasts for three minutes. Still, it's not enough to matter in terms of how great this game truly is so don't expect a score difference in terms of reviews. Of course, the PS3 also has the exclusive ability to take on challenges as the Joker, but I'm not including that in this review because the Joker stuff isn't on the game disc -- it's free DLC you get from the PlayStation Store.

The Verdict

Batman: Arkham Asylum is the greatest comic book
videogame of all time -- and the Game of the Year Edition just adds to that. This is an adult Dark Knight story that is well-told, packs some truly fun gameplay elements, has topnotch voice talent, and feels like it's part of Batman canon. If I have to nitpick, I wish the cutscenes looked better as they can distract from the tale and that the AI was a bit more responsive, but those are tiny flaws that shouldn't distract from the big picture.